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Glacial History in Antarctica

Dear Lesley:

Thank you for the photos of Antarctic trash/archaeological artifacts. I have a dream for a sustainable Antarctic outpost: The people there produce all their own food during the sumer season using insulated outdoor greenhouses, and otherwise get all their energy from the sun. Airplanes fry to and fro on plant-based fuels. Is anybody there talking about going green in Antarctica? If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere, even on Mars! If we're ever going to go to Mars, we can learn how to do it in Antarctica.
yours always, Michael Wing (Finland '09)

Sun, 01/30/2011 - 13:13

Lesley Urasky

Michael, 
The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) is slowly becoming more sustainable.  In 2008, a joing project between McMurdo Station and the New Zealand station of Scott Base began a wind farm project.  While I was there, they had three turbines located on Crater Hill.  To learn more about this, you can visit the Antarctic Sun (newspaper for the USAP) and read about the project:  http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contentHandler.cfm?id=1527
 
The greenhouse idea is one that the USAP has been working on for some time.  The problem with an indoor greenhouse in the austral summer is that the majority of plants release their oxygen at night ("breathe").  With 24 hour daylight, this becomes a problem.  Potentially, what they could do is create a greenhouse that has shutters that are programmed to open and close automatically to simulate night time.  During the austral winter, both McMurdo and the South Pole Stations have functioning greenhouses.  To learn more about them, you can go to:http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/aroundTheContinent/contentHandler.cfm?id=1… (the article is about 1/3 down the page - look for the title: "Now Serving Fresh Salad at the South Pole").
 
As for all the airplanes and helicopters, I think that dream is a long way down the road.  All these fuels would still need to be transported to the continent which is an energy-intensive endeavor in and of itself. The planes would need to be retrofitte or redesigned to use these fuels.  The C-17s and LC-130s were manufactured a long time ago.  I'm also not sure how well these types of fuels would respond to the extreme cold weather.  Diesel fuels will gel up at cold enough temperatures, so much of the fuels used in Antarctica are jet fuels or a mixture containing jet fuel.
 
The Dry Valleys of Antarctica have long been used as a model for Mars, so if those conditions can be simulated here, I agree that Antarctica would be the idea place to experiment with alternative means of living.